First... My condolences to ALL families touched by this horrible incident.

I also feel a need to post this...

Here is what I fear is going to happen.

over the next few days and weeks... The story is going to morph into the evil of guns. How guns are the problem. How the gun makers are to blame.

In that context, people are going to forget that there was a disturbed human being who devalued life to the point that he felt it okay to destroy the lives of 30 plus people.

the REAL question here is NOT how did he get the gun. the REAL question is, how did we as a society come to a place were people could care less about other humans... And yes, I will posit the answer...

1. No greater judgement after death... regardless of specific religion.

2. We have devalued life to the point of irrelevancy. Human life is no more important then animals. As such, it is okay to put animals to sleep when we are done with them... so why not our girlfriends/boyfriends... etc.

3. We have removed mores and values from society that guided the way people act and react.

Now I know, some may say that my post was too soon. I apologize. But I wanted to get people thinking about the REAL problems here.

Great post, Father. Couldn't agree with you more, especially Point #3.

As I'm sure you will agree, guns don't kill people. People kill people.

Thursday is the 8th anniversary of the Columbine shootings - could this be a kopy-kat massacre?

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- A gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later, in a classroom across campus Monday, killing at least 30 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history, government officials told The Associated Press. The gunman was killed, bringing the death toll to 31.

Students and a Virginia Tech employee said the first e-mail warning they got from the university about the rampage came more than two hours after the first shots were fired - by which time the gunman had struck again.

For Brent Dillie, a fourth-year engineering student from Upper St. Clair at Virginia Tech, the call he got after his 11 a.m. class today from his girlfriend was nothing out of the ordinary.

But her news was. A gunman was killing people: at least 31, including himself, the worst mass shooting in American history.

"But for this many people to be shot, wow, really it is surreal," Mr. Dillie, 22, said.

Will Snyder, 19, a wrestler at Virginia Tech who graduated from Elizabeth-Forward High School, also described the campus scene as "surreal."

"Looking out my dorm window, it is like a movie scene," he said. "There are police everywhere and ambulances everywhere. I've never seen anything like it and never thought I would see anything like this."

Students were described as diving out of windows and hunkering in dorm room corners, trying to stay safe from the still unidentified gunman.

Mr. Dillie said his girlfriend told him there was a shooting at the Ambler-Johnson dorm, which is one of the biggest dorms on campus.

"Everyone is saying that there was this guy who went there and shot his girlfriend and then shot the [residence assistant] who stepped in and reacted to the shooting," Mr. Dillie said.

More than two dozen people were reported injured.

Mr. Dillie's brother, Scott, a sophomore at Virginia Tech, had just finished soccer practice and was down in the locker room when he got a text message. "The text said two people had been shot in one of the dorm rooms," Scott Dillie said. "Our soccer fields are right next to the dorm where this happened and as we were looking over all the cops came running out of that dorm, which is West Ambler-Johnson. They then across to the second site to where there was shooting."

"I feel like it could have happened anywhere," he said. "It kind of gives the campus a bad name, but it could have happened anywhere. It hasn't sunk in yet. I feel bad for all the kids and the University."

Mr. Snyder, an industrial design major, said he was at wrestling practice when the first shooting occurred. When he left practice for class, he saw police officers raid a nearby dorm.

"I don't know if they were SWAT team member or what, but they went into the dorm."

He went quickly to his dorm and was told to gather in the basement with other students.

As the news out of Blacksburg, Va. filtered in to area parents with children at the college, disbelief quickly gave way to stark fear when they found phone lines jammed.

"My husband called me at work and said he couldn't reach our son," said Donna Kaczanoski, of Bethel Park, whose son, Jonathan, is a junior math major at the school.

"My first reaction was I was devastated. Devastated."

When she couldn't get in touch with her son via his cell phone, she asked a nephew to try. Through the school's Corps of Cadets -- Jonathan is part of the campus' Air Force ROTC -- he learned her son was safe.

Soon after, she reached him on his cell.

"All he told me was that we was staying in his room," she said.

"It's unbelievable to me that this happened. Nobody knew about this [gunman] having guns? Somebody had to know."

Meanwhile, as more became known about the events of this morning, students began relating their own experiences. Some thought the influx of police and ambulances on campus had to do with several recent bomb hoaxes. Soon enough, though, they discovered the awful truth.

Caitlin Bluey, a junior majoring in Human Development, said she was leaving a cycling class she taught at the gymnasium across the walkway from West Ambler-Johnson this morning when a policeman waved her away.

"I was walking past the building and the cops came out and told me to get in my car and go back to my apartment," Miss Bluey said.

When she returned to her apartment, just off campus, she received a campus-wide email telling students not to come onto campus and, for those with dormitory rooms, to stay indoors and away from windows.

Miss Bluey, 20, who graduated from Upper St. Clair High School and whose father serves on the school board there, spent today with a friend, Leah Croker, a junior finance major who graduated from North Allegheny High School.

"There are still some people we know that we haven't heard from," Miss Bluey said. "I'm just distraught right now. I know it'll definitely hit once we know actual names and pictures are put up. I know for a fact that if there are that many who died there's going to be someone I know."

Miss Croker said one friend was inside Norris Hall, the scene of the worst parts of the rampage, when the shooting broke out. Both women described the young man as devastated, hardly able to speak.

"We just started calling all our friends and making sure everybody was OK," Miss Croker said. "We're trying to account for our friends. There are some people that are still missing that were around that area or had classes in that building, that we're still trying to contact."